Published: August 3, 1990

Fighting in the city was concentrated in Shuwaik, Kuwait's main military barracks. The area was covered with smoke and witnesses said Kuwaiti forces were putting up a strong resistance. Gunfire was heard from other points outside the capital.

But by nightfall pockets of resistance which had held out in parts of the country appeared to have been eliminated and about 200 Iraqi tanks clanked through the capital. Some parked along the seaside highway, their guns pointing to the Gulf.

Lloyds Intelligence reported that Iraqi troops, who quickly took control of the airport and royal palace, were moving south of the capital toward the oilfields at Mina al-Ahmadi on the Kuwaiti-Saudi border.

Even after the fighting died down, the Government of Sheik Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah continued to issue calls for resistance from radio transmitters in the desert.

They urged Kuwaitis to ''make the aggressors taste the chalice of death.''

A Call to Arms

''We shall fight them everywhere until we clean their treachery from our land,'' the broadcasts said. ''Our Arab brothers are with us. Our Muslim brothers are with us. The entire world is with us. And above all, God is with us.''

The Emir's younger brother, Prince Fahd, died defending Dasman Palace, the sheik's residence on the banks of the Persian Gulf, which was strafed by Iraqi jets in the initial assault.

Kuwait's al-Emiri Hospital, near Dasman Palace, reported 3 Kuwaiti dead and 45 wounded there alone. About 95 Iraqis had been admitted with wounds, the hospital said, adding that it knew of more casualties at other hospitals.

At dawn, explosions and gunfire echoed around the skyscrapers of the capital, Kuwait, as the vastly stronger Iraqi Army, backed by tanks and helicopters, stormed into the city and quickly took control of the palace, the international airport and the central bank.

Across Sand and Scrub

Hundreds of Iraqi tanks, armored personnel carriers, fuel and water tankers and truckloads of troops had trundled 80 miles from the border across sand and scrub toward Kuwait in temperatures above 105 degrees.

The Iraqi-backed ''Free Provisional Kuwait Government'' broadcast to the nation, announcing that it had taken power and was imposing an indefinite curfew.

Iraq said it struck to support a coup by young Kuwaiti revolutionaries against the Sabah family, whom it denounced as ''traitors and agents of Zionist and foreign schemes.''

The invasion across the disputed border was begun at 2 A.M. (7 P.M. Wednesday, Eastern daylight time) and within several hours the first Iraqi troops were taking up positions in downtown Kuwait.

An atmosphere of war engulfed the capital. The radio and television broadcast patriotic songs and orders for mobilization of the armed forces.

A quick sampling suggested that many Iraqis considered President Saddam Hussein's offensive to be justified by his quarrel with Kuwait over oil, money and land. Some Iraqis, recalling their long and bloody war with Iran, which ended less than two years ago, worried about what would follow.

Ahmed Khalis, a college student, said, ''The Kuwaiti rulers deserve what Saddam did to them.''

Recalling the war from 1980 to 1988, in which Gulf Arab states gave Iraq billions of dollars' worth of aid, Mr. Khalis said: ''The Kuwaitis boast of their aid to Iraq, but it was Iraq that defended their thrones and wealth with blood. We sacrificed our brothers, fathers and sons to let them enjoy life.''

Mohammed Saadun, a college graduate who was recently discharged from military service, said: ''I have been expecting a cross-border operation since Kuwait humiliated Iraq by refusing even to write off debts. Saddam cannot tolerate this.''